EDI integration for
orders, deliveries and invoices
Receive orders automatically via EDI, send out your deliveries and immediately create the matching invoice and send it, also via EDI. No retyping, no separate administration.
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) lets two business systems communicate directly with each other, in a fixed digital format both parties have agreed on in advance. For a trading company that means: orders from customers or retail chains come in automatically, deliveries go out automatically, and the matching invoice is created and sent immediately.
Large retail chains and industrial customers expect this as standard today. If you still work with PDFs, email or a portal where someone has to retype everything manually, you risk errors and delays, and you even risk a customer not doing business with you at all.
What is EDI?
EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange: the automated exchange of business documents between two systems, in a fixed, standardised format. Instead of a PDF, an email or a portal where someone has to retype data, the system of your customer or supplier receives the data directly, ready for automatic processing.
For a trading company, this usually comes down to three documents: the order a customer places, the delivery or shipping notice that goes out as soon as you deliver, and the matching invoice. Running all three through EDI eliminates manual work and retyping errors completely.
Receiving orders,
directly via EDI
A customer or retail chain places an order in their own system. Via EDI, that order automatically ends up in Deskflow, without anyone having to open a PDF or retype anything.
- The order comes in automatically, with customer, items, quantities and the requested delivery date.
- Deskflow recognises the customer and the items based on the agreed codes.
- Stock is reserved immediately, just as with a manually entered order.
- Retyping errors disappear, because nobody types the order in by hand anymore.
Deliveries automatically
sent out via EDI
As soon as you process an order and deliver it, Deskflow automatically sends the shipping notice to your customer via EDI. They immediately know what is on its way, without you having to email a delivery note or upload it to a portal.
- The shipping notice (also known as an ASN, advance shipping notice) goes out automatically when the delivery is prepared.
- Quantities, packages and tracking data are included according to the agreements with your customer.
- Partial deliveries are simply sent separately, just as with a regular delivery.
- Your customer can book the delivery into their own system automatically right away.
The matching invoice,
created and sent automatically
Every delivery comes with an invoice. Deskflow creates it automatically as soon as you deliver, and sends it via EDI in the format your customer expects. You never have to draw up or send an invoice manually anywhere.
- The invoice is created automatically as soon as the delivery goes out, based on what was actually delivered.
- It is sent to your customer via EDI, in the agreed format.
- Amounts and items match the order and the delivery exactly, so there is no discussion afterwards.
- EDI and e-invoicing via Peppol run side by side: per customer, you choose the channel that fits.
For many customers, EDI is not a choice but a requirement
Large retail chains, wholesalers and industrial customers today expect you to work via EDI. Not because it is fun, but because their own systems are set up that way: orders, deliveries and invoices need to come in automatically, without anyone on their side having to retype anything. If you don't go along with it, you simply risk not being allowed to supply them at all.
For yourself it pays off at least as much. Every retyping step is a chance for an error: a wrong item number, a wrong quantity, an invoice that does not match the delivery. Via EDI that step disappears completely, and so do the discussions that come with it.
It also simply saves time. An order that now comes in automatically used to have to be retyped by someone from a PDF or a portal. At ten or twenty orders a day, that quickly adds up to hours of work, every single day.
Retyping a PDF order takes a few minutes. At a hundred orders a month, that quickly adds up to a full working day, every month again.
EDI belongs in your stock management, not alongside it
EDI messages that sit separately from your stock and your invoicing do not solve anything: someone still has to re-enter them into the system the rest of your business runs on. In Deskflow, the EDI integration is therefore connected directly to the same stock, orders and invoicing as the rest of your sales channels.
Whether you sell via a B2B portal, a webshop, sales reps, or EDI with a large customer: everything draws from the same stock and ends up in the same order tracking and invoicing.
More about online stock management · More about order tracking · More about e-invoicing via Peppol
Frequently asked questions about EDI
Ready for EDI?
Orders, deliveries and invoices, automatically via EDI
Book a no-obligation call. We'll look together at which EDI format your customer requires and how quickly you can be up and running.